


Red Pen and White Sheets

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Hint of Angst, Love Confessions, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-17 05:32:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15454404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: “I’ll be back in California this weekend at the beach house. I’d like to speak with you.” With Cat's unexpected and unexplained trip back from DC and her short message to Kara, both women find that they have some unresolved feelings to sort through as they're brought back together for the first time in a year.





	Red Pen and White Sheets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jazwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazwriter/gifts).



> For @jazwriter, I hope you enjoy!!

Cat paced back and forth, her heels clicking against the hardwood of the apartment she’d been renting since accepting Olivia’s invitation to come work for the White House. She skimmed across the byline of the article again before tossing the copy of The Tribune down to the table with an exasperated huff, wondering where the promising young reporter she’d once seen had gone. The well-researched pieces on Cadmus and alien rights that had begun cropping up among the assignments she could imagine Snapper gleefully thrusting at his newest reporter—things about waste management and traffic violations and bird migrations—had disappeared, replaced with columns she would have sent back so saturated with red pen that they dripped. Sure, once or twice before she’d seen a suspect Supergirl quote or two pop up in Kara’s articles as her only source of proof, but a company-wide email about source verification and a few choice words of advice to Kara the last time she had seen her seemed to have stamped out that particular bad habit. These days, though, it was less ethically murky choices and more…poor journalism. The articles lacked the vitality and hope they’d once exuded; the topics were trite; the conclusions either underwhelming or unfounded. Once she could dismiss as a bad day. Twice she could excuse after seeing how many crimes Supergirl had stopped that week. Three times was a habit. And the point they had reached now…well that required intervention.

Pushing aside the voice in her head reminding her that Kara was Snapper’s responsibility now, that she was on sabbatical and hadn’t reached out for a personal touch with a single other under-performing employee, Cat pulled out her phone and opened her messages to Kara. She skimmed through the last few texts they had sent to one another.

 **Kara:**  Please don’t fire Eve! She didn’t know about the E. coli scare and would never have gotten you lettuce wraps if she realized. There’s sushi from your favorite restaurant waiting for you if you let her have this one mistake…

 **Cat:**  Very well. One mistake—that’s it.

 **Kara:**  You won’t regret it, I promise!

A wry smile tugged at the corners of Cat’s mouth. Even if Eve could never compare to Kara, true to Kara’s promises, Cat hadn’t regretted keeping her around.

The messages were distinctly lighter, if sparser, after then. With Kara settled into her new role, there were no daily reminders about lunches to be ordered and layouts to be picked up and events to be attended, but there was a new note of playfulness. Kara had sent a link to some new strategy game she suspected Carter (and Cat) would like. Cat had sent a photo of a Forever 21 she’d walked past in DC that had a clearance sale sign in the window with a snarky message about finding some more hideous cardigans, to which Kara had sent back a selfie of her in a brand new navy sweater that was less offensive than many of her others. Then again, maybe it was equally bad, but the damn sunny smile had distracted Cat in making her judgments.

Cat swallowed heavily as she lingered on the photo, remembering all the reasons she had conjured up for why, of all the things in National City that she missed, Kara stood out above all the rest. Because she could bring her son to Washington and find new favorite restaurants and spots with him. And she could let herself relax her iron grip on CatCo, trusting that it would still be running when she returned from making her mark on a new city. And she could even bid farewell to Supergirl, knowing she belonged in National City in the same way that Superman kept his place in Metropolis and the Bat family set up their caves in Gotham. But the flip side of that coin…the young woman beneath the gaudy reds and blues…she seemed distinctly irreplaceable.

Cat had tried, of course. She thought maybe she missed the pride of mentorship, of watching someone come into their own under her tutelage. And so she’d found Nia, a particularly promising young reporter, and plucked her out of the pack of interns and junior reporters, bringing her into the inner circle in the Press Secretary’s office and watching as she flourished. It had been gratifying in its own way, but Cat’s heart didn’t ache at the knowledge that she’d be losing Nia any day now—sending her off to National City with the promise of a decent salary and a guaranteed job writing for the politics and national news section of The Tribune. She was excited to see what Nia would make of the new opportunities, and her only source of frustration was in the knowledge that she would need to go scour the newsroom to find someone half as good to take her place.

After that, Cat had tried finding herself a new assistant—maybe she missed having someone to boss around—but it hadn’t been that either.

It took Carter asking if she was going to date anyone after a long week of vacation spent with his father and his father’s new girlfriend for Cat to let herself own up to the reality that the feelings for Kara that she had pushed down and tried to shove into neat little boxes like pride and admiration and mentorship and maybe even friendship didn’t quite fit. Or they did, but they weren’t enough. Like those Russian stacking dolls that all folded into each other but lacked the outermost layer that explained why, of all the things she could miss, it wasn’t her company or her home or her favorite restaurant—it was Kara.

Not that her realization changed anything about the way she acted. She kept at her job and, if anything, imposed more distance between herself and Kara, ignoring the occasional email she received from her and throwing herself wholeheartedly into her new job and her life in Washington. She even tried dating around, though nothing lasted. Everyone seemed so…one-dimensional. And dull. And of all the things Cat Grant would not tolerate, dullness neared the top of the list.

The changing quality in Kara’s work, though, that constituted a legitimate need to reach out to the woman, Cat reasoned. After all, her company was her brand, her name; it wouldn’t do to have it sink because Kara had become distracted or unmotivated.

Shaking her head at her own indecisiveness, Cat unlocked her phone once more, typing out: “I’ll be back in California this weekend at the beach house. I’d like to speak with you.” She hit send before she could second-guess herself. After all, she had a last minute trip to plan.

\---

“Alex,” Kara whined, scooting in between Alex and her lab bench.

“I’m at work, Kara. Speaking of”—Alex glanced down at her watch—“shouldn’t you be too?”

“I don’t know.” She scuffed her boots against the floor, ignoring Alex’s grumbling about her workspace. In truth, she should be at work. Supergirl had done her thing and helped rescue the passengers from the wreckage of the accident down the freeway, and it was time for Kara to return to her role as a regular old reporter, but she couldn’t find the motivation to go. She hadn’t really been able to find the motivation for much of anything lately. Between losing more people in her life yet again and wrestling with too many emotions she couldn’t name or untangle, things like looking into what stance some local politician had on recycling or investigating whether the new transit bill would actually help encourage more people to take the city buses seemed unimportant, at least in the grand scheme of things.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Kara lied. “I just don’t want to deal with Snapper.” That bit was true. That was always true.

“And I don’t always want to deal with all those pain in the ass, self-important men in Washington, but we do what we have to do, yeah?”

Kara fixed Alex with a stern glare. “You finished the bottle of Johnny Walker I had in my cabinet after your first meeting with all of them as the new director of the DEO.”

“But I still dealt with them, didn’t I?” Alex taunted, a teasing smile playing on her lips.

“If that’s how you’re gonna deal with them every time, I’m switching over to buy you the cheap stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“But seriously, Alex, what am I supposed to do with this?” She thrust her phone in front of Alex’s face so that she couldn’t ignore the question a third time.

“I don’t know. It’s Cat. Aren’t you, like, the Cat whisperer or whatever?”

“I think that’s probably Selina,” Kara muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just…she used two periods, Alex. Two! That means she’s mad!”

“No, that means you’re mad. To her that’s probably just correct punctuation.”

“She doesn’t always!” Kara scrolled up, ignoring the numerous instances in which Cat had, in fact, used periods to punctuate her messages, finding a handful of instances when she’d used an exclamation point or no end punctuation at all and reading them out to Alex.

“If you’re that concerned, why don’t you ask her what it means?”

“I can’t do that!” Kara cringed as Alex closed her eyes and breathed in for long enough that Kara knew she was doing those deep breathing exercises J’onn made her practice after everything with Jeremiah.

“Then what do you want from me?”

“I…is she mad at me?”

“She’s inviting you into her personal space, Kara. I doubt she would do that if she were mad at you. Wouldn’t that be…I don’t know, a phone call? A terse email?”

Kara nodded slowly, letting the truth of Alex’s words sink in. “Probably.”

“So then you’re fine.”

“But then what  _does_  she want?”

A timer beeped somewhere in the lab. “I need to deal with that. I only get a few hours to myself these days.” Alex shuffled over to one of the bigger machines, pulling out a tray of cultures.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine. I just think…I don’t know. You talk about missing Cat a lot. I would have thought you’d be more excited about this than you are.”

“I…” Kara paused, mulling over Alex’s words. She had missed Cat. She’d missed Cat more than she’d ever expected—both as Kara and as Supergirl. But the few times she’d tried reaching out to bridge that divide, she’d found herself rebuffed and ignored until she stopped trying altogether. “It’s been a long time.”

“I know. What? A year?”

“Two since she left CatCo. Little over one since she came back for the whole Daxamite invasion, almost-apocalypse thing.”

“Think maybe you’re nervous about seeing her again?”

“What?” Kara hated the way her voice cracked on the word.

Alex shrugged, already hunching over one of her petri dishes and making notes. “You’ve always cared about what she thinks. Why would that have changed?”

“I guess maybe.”

Kara spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of half-attentiveness, breaking a stapler when she let her thoughts drift far enough away from the task at hand to forget her own strength for a moment. She thought back on everything she’d done as Supergirl, trying to figure out if there were glaring mistakes she had made. Maybe she’d spent a bit too much time throwing herself into every minor incident for a few months after the Daxamites left, but she’d scaled back on that impulse with time. Enough about the Worldkillers and all that had happened with them was kept under wraps that Kara didn’t think her actions there could have come under close scrutiny, though maybe Cat’s ties to the president would have given her access to more information than most. Then again, it was Cat Grant. She probably had information even the president didn’t have.

After several angry comments from Snapper about her lack of attention, Kara forced herself to pull out her phone and open up the text message that had been weighing on her all day. She tried out several variations of the message until finally settling on: “I’ll come up on Saturday afternoon. Hope all is well!”

\---

Running the lint roller over the sofa for the third time, Cat could almost hear Carter’s voice in her head: “Mom, Kara isn’t gonna judge you if there’s one little piece of dust somewhere in the apartment.” She could certainly picture the pursed lips and the roll of his eyes that his dad still blamed her for teaching him. And the Carter of her thoughts was probably right. After all, she’d seen Kara come back from her heroics with more concrete dust in her hair than would ever be allowed to exist in Cat’s home before she hired someone to come rectify the mess immediately.

Cat checked her watch. 3:08pm. Surely that qualified as the afternoon already. She drummed her fingers against the back of the couch. Maybe Kara was driving, keeping up the pretense about the poorly held secret that was Kara’s “secret” identity that Cat swore they’d finally done away with after the Daxamite invasion.

Browsing along her bookshelves, Cat pulled out some half-dreadful beach-y summer romance novel that had been mailed to her during her first month broadcasting from the run-down old studio that housed CatCo’s first television station. She would have thrown it out, but the inscription inside of it—an ardent love letter bursting at the seams with over-the-top compliments—had lifted her mood and given her a much-needed laugh during one of the harder weeks of her career, and she could never bring herself to throw it out, even if she’d never made it past the first chapter or two of the book.

“Didn’t really take you for the reader of”—Kara squinted at the cover—“any book with the word ‘ravish’ in the title.” She grinned as Cat spun around, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed a faint shade of pink.

Cat could feel the surge of embarrassment crashing over her, and her mouth was open before she could think better of it. “Didn’t really take you for a reporter who would half-ass something and send it to press.” She hated herself the moment it left her lips, and the hurt expression on Kara’s face did little to help.

“Is that what this is about then?” Kara’s chin jutted out with a hint of her Supergirl confidence. “You had me come all the way out here to do my annual performance review yourself?”

“No, I…” Cat shut her eyes, wishing she had a glass of scotch or even just her jar of M&Ms in front of her. “Can we sit?”

Kara’s movements were stiff as she made her way into the living room, and she perched at the edge of the couch as though she were, at any moment, preparing to flee.

“Can I get you anything? Water? One of those hideously large desserts you like to eat?” It didn’t earn her the sunny smile the teasing once would have; instead, Kara pursed her lips and hunched her shoulders. “Please, I didn’t mean…I’m concerned about you.”

“After two years of silence?”

“It wasn’t total silence,” Cat hedged.

Kara merely glared in response, and Cat thought if she could bring this to her interviews, they might just make a solid investigative journalist out of her yet.

“Fine, it has been a while.”

“So what is so important that you didn’t only text me, but you had me meet you here?”

Cat swallowed heavily. “Like I said, I was concerned about you.”

“Because I can’t do my job up to your standards?”

“Because your writing didn’t sound like you anymore, and I was”—Cat flicked her wrist in the air, trying to downplay the extent of her concern—“worried that perhaps something had gone wrong.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Kara took in a ragged breath. “Why now? Why now when there were so many times before that I could have used you?”

Cat felt her breath catch in her throat at the barely perceptible tremble to Kara’s voice, the way her hands balled up into fists on her lap, the little cracks spiderwebbing out and shattering the façade she had built up. And Cat had so many easy lies on the tip of her tongue, but with Kara sitting in front of her, she found none of them fit as well as the truth. “I don’t know. Maybe…maybe I was scared.”

She got a derisive snort of laughter in return. “Why would you be scared?”

“Because I shouldn’t care this much!” Cat snapped. “I shouldn’t be sitting over 2,500 miles away from National City wondering whether some junior reporter’s life is going alright because her articles lack the warmth they once had.”

Kara blinked back tears, pushing her glasses up to rub roughly under her eyes. “It’s not.”

“What’s not?”

“Things…I don’t know,” Kara sniffled. “Sorry, I know, I know, no crying at work.”

Cat made a show of looking around her. “This doesn’t much look like the office, does it?”

“No, but—”

“And I’m no longer your boss or even in charge of CatCo, am I?”

“You’re not, but—”

“Look, I understand that your writing is your work, but we both know that’s not where this conversation is headed—not really.”

“Is this like the whole anger behind the anger thing?”

One corner of Cat’s mouth curled up into a smile. “You remembered something, then.”

“I miss having you around. I miss your pep talks and your advice. I miss—I miss you.”

Cat tried to keep her breathing normal. Missing someone didn’t have to mean the same thing to Kara as it did to her. She missed things she’d never had; Kara missed what they actually were. “I can’t say I’ve been able to find anyone like you in Washington.”

“Suppose you’d have to go up to Metropolis for that,” Kara joked, letting out a watery chuckle.

“That isn’t what makes you special, Kara.” Cat paused, tilting her head to one side. “Or, well, it’s not the only thing that makes you special.”

“I just…it’s been hard, you know?”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s a lot, and I’m sure you have other things to do while you’re here.”

Not bothering to point out that she actually had no plans given that she had no reason to be in California, Cat put a hand on Kara’s. “I’ll even order that greasy pizza you love for some reason.”

“I know you like it too.”

“Yes, well not all of us have a metabolism that lets us shove garbage in and still look like a model.” She turned around quickly enough to miss the flush of pink that colored Kara’s cheeks. “I’ll order. Make yourself comfortable.”

Before Kara knew it, she found herself spilling everything to Cat. The Daxamite invasion and sending Mon-El into space—not that it had really lasted. Spending months moping around, devastated over the death of a relationship that had infuriated her more often than it had made her happy but unsure about why until Psi had shown up and helped her realize that it was less about losing  _him_  than it was about losing what he stood for—the last tie to someone who understood, someone else who hadn’t been sent off as a baby too young to remember anything of a lost world.

The pizza showed up then, and Cat paid, dismissing Kara’s offer to chip in with a flick of her wrist.

Once Kara had loaded up her plate and inhaled a slice or two, she set back in on her story. Because of course it couldn’t ever stay as simple as saying her goodbyes and mourning and coming to terms with it all. Because of course he’d come back—come back with a wife and a high-tech future spaceship and declarations and longing looks that left her frustrated and upset with no outlet for her feelings. And then there were the Worldkillers. There were agents and civilians alike dying in droves while she felt useless, powerless compared to Reign. Then the pain of losing the friendships she’d started building. There was Sam, lost to Reign and then gone from National City. There was Lena, who hated half of the person Kara was without knowing how much it pained Kara to hear the way she spoke about Supergirl. There was Winn, gone off to the future. There was J’onn leaving the DEO. And then there was her mother.

That was the only time Cat interrupted with a startled gasp she couldn’t bite back in time.

And Kara had told people about the joy—the wistfulness, sure, but the joy mainly—of finding Argo City still intact and her mother still alive. But she hadn’t let them glimpse the grief and pain and anger of coming face-to-face with the woman who had sent her away for a life of more responsibility than any child should have to bear but, unlike Rhea and Lar Gand, had never come looking for her daughter, even when she managed to survive the death of the planet she thought condemned. The woman who had condemned her sister and her planet and used Kara to do so. The woman whose justice had been dispensed with an iron fist that allowed for none of the compassion she’d instilled in Kara over the years.

Kara was crying by the end of it, but she found she also felt lighter, like some emotional burden she’d been carrying around with her for months had been lifted. She let Cat wrap an arm around her, though, let herself be comforted by the woman she assumed had abandoned her like too many others in her life already had.

“I wish you’d had someone there for you,” Cat whispered.

“I did. I mean, I had Alex and J’onn, but they were both grieving too.” In response to the unvoiced question, Kara shook her head. “It’s a long story. Lost love. Family members returned from the dead only to die again.”

“Oh.” Cat pursed her lips, her eyebrows scrunching together. “The little detective?”

“You’re one to talk about little.”

Cat merely rolled her eyes. “I wear higher heels than she did.” A beat. “Pity, I liked her. Scully seemed happy for a change.” 

“Yeah… They called off the wedding—very last minute. And, you know, Alex has always been there for me, more than anyone else. I didn’t need to add to her plate when she was barely dealing with her own stuff as it was.”

“I wish I had been there. Or that you had known that I would have been there if you had asked.”

“Would you have, though?”

The accusation hung heavy in the air.

“No one should have to go through that alone,” Cat said, her voice nearly a whisper.

“But you didn’t…you never texted or called or asked how I was.”

“Because I wanted to give you space to thrive on your own without me overshadowing you or forcing you one way or the other.” Cat inhaled deeply, looking out the large bay windows at the sky that had, by that time, turned an inky shade of black.

And Kara wanted to accept it, to take Cat’s words at face value and leave it there, but she couldn’t ignore the questions still niggling at the back of her thoughts. “You said you were concerned, though. So why…why did you never ask?”

“Isn’t that what I just did?”

“It’s been two years.”

“It’s been less than that since I started noticing a shift.”

“Fine, a year. That’s still a long time.”

Cat sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “I wouldn’t want you to think that I was intruding too far into your life.”

“That never stopped you before.”

“Maybe it should have,” Cat snapped. “I…I let myself get confused, let the boundaries between us grow fuzzy, and that was my mistake.”

“So what? Now that I’ve told you absolutely everything, you’re going to shut down to try to prove to yourself that you can keep boundaries so long as they only ever go one way?”

“What do you want me to say, Kara? Do you want me to tell you that I’ve missed you more than I should have? Do you want me to tell you that I have been searching all over Washington for something that I know I’ll never find because it isn’t you? Because it  _can’t_  be you?”

“What’s so bad about letting yourself admit that? What’s so bad about letting me know that it isn’t all so one-sided?”

Cat’s brow furrowed as she looked at Kara. “Isn’t it, though?”

“I thought…it seemed like things between us were changing. Like I wasn’t just your assistant.” She ducked her head in acknowledgement of the open secret that had lingered between them for so long. “Like even the side of me that wasn’t Supergirl was starting to be someone worth your time. Like…like maybe we could be close as Cat and Kara, not as the CEO of CatCo and the hero of National City.”

“You, Kara Danvers, you have always been worth my time, even if I haven’t always been the best at showing it.” Cat rubbed at her temples, willing away the stress headache she could feel building the longer she went trying to cover up the few words she still couldn’t say. “I pushed you away because I started realizing just how close I did want us to be.”

“And why is that a bad thing? Is it embarrassing or something because I’m some lowly assistant or a junior reporter?”

Cat steepled her hands in her lap, closing her eyes taking in a deep breath through her nose, then out through her mouth. “It’s a bad thing because, without quite realizing it, I let my feelings for you exceed the appropriate boundaries that should have been set up.”

“I don’t—”

“I like you, Kara. I like you in that silly, absurd, clichéd romantic way that I’m absolutely certain you love watching happen over and over again in terrible movies.”

Kara blinked slowly, the words washing over her. It was the very last thing she’d been expecting, and of all the contingency plans she’d made, this situation had never occurred to her. She leaned forward slightly, inch by inch, until she could feel Cat’s breath ghosting over her lips.

When Cat closed the distance, it wasn’t like the desperate, passionate kisses she saw in those bad movies Cat teased her about. It was slow, gradual, building into something with heat as Cat’s lips fitted themselves against her own, Cat’s soft hand cupping at her jaw.

It was as Cat’s lips parted that the weight of it all came crashing down around Kara. She hadn’t planned for this. She hadn’t thought of how this would play out and affect everything moving forward. She didn’t even know if this was something that she’d ever let herself want or think about as an option.

She didn’t realize she had frozen, all of her muscles tensed and that damned crinkle running down the middle of her forehead, until Cat pulled back, her eyes full of concern. “Are you okay?”

“I should go. Yeah, I should…I should go.”

Kara was up and out the door before Cat could react. Launching herself into the air before Cat could get her shoes on to come find her. Circling the air above the beach house before Cat could make it outside.

With the cool sea breeze whipping around her, Kara closed her eyes and let herself think. She hadn’t…she wasn’t… She inhaled deeply, letting the smell of the salty ocean brine overwhelm her senses for a moment. Alex had teased her about having a crush on Cat, and Lucy had been even worse, but Kara had never entertained the thought that it could ever really be anything. But now…now apparently it could be. If she wanted it to be.

She tried to picture it. Date nights with Cat. Taking her to little restaurants she’d never frequent otherwise. Letting herself be dragged to fancy events in borrowed dresses. Holding Cat’s hand at those boring galas she used to attend as Cat’s assistant. Not having to watch on as the Max Lords of the world swooped in and took Cat’s hand for a dance, but being able to do it herself, to pull Cat close to her chest and spin her around the floor, maybe even teach her the steps to the handful of Kryptonian dances she still remembered. There would be quiet nights in and homemade meals. Game nights with Carter. Watching as he grew older and matured into the extraordinary young man Kara knew he would become. There would be nights spent alone together too. More kissing. Definitely more kissing. Kisses where that heat was allowed to burn into something more as they opened themselves up to each other, learning the curves and feel of a new body.

Little by little, Kara realized she wanted it. Wanted that. Wanted Cat. The waves of wanting crashed over her with a force that left her frozen in midair. Because she had run. Because she hadn’t said a word and had left Cat confused and scared and likely convinced that Kara didn’t feel the same way.

Ignoring the swell of fear—of fear about what would happen if it didn’t work or what would happen if it  _did_  work—Kara pushed herself faster, whipping up huge swells of water and listening as they crashed back down. She slowed her approach as she neared the shore, gliding down into the sand and running the final few feet to Cat’s door, knocking three times before pushing it open.

“Cat!”

There was no answer. Kara paused, listening to the rapid thumping of Cat’s heartbeat, then the footfalls as she slowly descended the stairs.

“Cat, please.”

“What do you want, Kara? Do you want an apology? Because I’m sorry. I thought…it doesn’t matter what I thought you were doing. I shouldn’t have. I should never have—”

“No.” Kara was at Cat’s side in an instant, not caring about the streak of sandy footprints that now led from the door to the living room. “I—I wanted—of all the things I let myself imagine, of all the reasons you could have had for inviting me here today, I’d never dared to hope for this.”

“To hope?”

“Yes, Cat. To hope. And I won’t lie. I’m scared too. I’m scared because I’ve already lost so many people, and I don’t know that I can lose another. But I want this. I want you. And I don’t want to push you away because I’m too afraid about what might happen down the line.”

The second kiss was a little more like the passionate kisses of the movies she loved, and Kara let her hands tangle in Cat’s hair as she drew her closer, let her tongue sweep over Cat’s lower lip, let herself stop worrying and simply be present.

At some point they made it to the couch, and Kara let out a little whimper when Cat straddled her lap, her knees landing on either side of Kara’s hips and her mouth dropping down to Kara’s jaw, then her neck, then across her collar bones, kissing and sucking and nipping at unmarkable skin. She got a low groan in return as her hands caressed the soft, subtle curve of Cat’s hips, following them down and around to her ass as she pulled Cat in closer.

Eventually they made it all the way down, sprawled along the couch, and Kara settled in over top of Cat, protectively cradling Cat’s body between her strong arms as she trailed searing kisses down the column of Cat’s neck then across the exposed skin of her stomach where her shirt had ridden up, earning a chorus of soft gasps for her boldness. Minutes stretched into hours as they lost themselves in each other.

The sight of the sun slowly peeking up over the horizon and a few barely stifled yawns finally sent them up to bed, and Kara found, for the first time in too many nights, that her sleep wasn’t disturbed by apparitions of planets and people she’d thought lost.

With the heavy curtains drawn, they managed to sleep later than either of them had in ages.

The next morning, Cat woke to a fresh cup of coffee sitting on her nightstand and the sweet aroma of vanilla and cinnamon wafting up from the kitchen. After a quick stop in the bathroom to freshen up—just because they were being honest didn’t mean she needed Kara to see her with no effort behind her appearance and morning breath, not quite yet—Cat padded down the stairs with her coffee, finding Kara humming softly to herself as she flipped over two slices of french toast. She took a moment to appreciate the view, the sunlight catching Kara’s features and making her look radiant.

“Morning,” Kara hummed, pulling a plate out from the oven with two slices already on it and handing it over to Cat. “Thought you could use something filling since you only got a single slice of pizza last night.”

“Mm, have something that’ll expend a lot of energy in mind for me, Supergirl?”

Kara faltered for a moment, freezing halfway between the stove and the table with a small dish of fruit and a glass of water in her hands.

A smirk tugged up the corner of Cat’s mouth, and she basked in the weight of Kara’s attention, her heated gaze trailing up and down the length of Cat’s bare legs, skirting along the hem of the silk robe loosely knotted at her waist.

“I believe you still have something on the stove. Wouldn’t want it to burn.”

“Right.” Kara nodded, forcibly pulling herself away from Cat and back into the kitchen, finding this batch a little more charred than she’d normally like. She turned off the stove. There was no way she could focus on cooking now.

They made it through most of breakfast. Kara found she could withstand the flirty comments, the way Cat’s leg brushed against her own, the sight of Cat’s lips wrapping around her fork and the contented little moans she let out. But when Cat’s fingers brushed up her thigh, Kara felt her control snap.

“Cat.” It was little more than a whimper, but Cat obliged, tugging at Kara’s shirt and tilting her head to the side as Kara’s mouth found hers in a heated kiss. Lips parted and soft sighs filled the air as hands began to wander, the passion of the night before blossoming between them once more.

Kara dropped to her knees, settling in between Cat’s legs, her fingers pushing the hem of the robe higher and higher until they were skirting the edge of black lace. Her lips skimmed up smooth skin, and she delighted in the shivers of anticipation that ran through Cat’s thin frame.

“Don’t you think we should be in a bedroom for this? At least the first time,” Cat managed, the slight tremor to her voice the only sign that she wasn’t quite as in control as she normally liked to be.

And part of Kara wanted to say no, to insist that waiting any longer when she’d already gone so many months, years really, without realizing what it was she wanted was a terrible idea, but the hopelessly romantic side of her that Alex loved to mock drove her to her feet as she extended a hand, drawing Cat up from the chair and over to the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom. While Cat settled herself in bed, the soft white sheets billowing up around her, Kara nudged open the thick curtains, smiling as Cat was bathed in light. It was better this way.

Kara let herself fall into bed, holding herself above Cat as she kissed her, tracing every inch of the skin she’d begun to learn over the past few hours with her lips, learning the spots that elicited gasps and breathy sighs and murmured encouragement.

The robe went first, followed by their shirts. Kara shivered at the feeling of Cat’s fingers coming up to caress her breasts, her stomach clenching as Cat’s hands dipped lower and lower. She ducked her head in turn, following the line of Cat’s collarbone down the center of her chest, then back up and around, feeling goosebumps erupt in her tongue's wake, feeling Cat’s nipples harden beneath her lips. Short nails raked down her back when she nipped at smooth skin before soothing it with her tongue. A low groan was her reward when her lips traced the line of lace separating her from where she most wanted to be, and Cat’s hips canted up as she mouthed over the already damp fabric.

The last of their clothing fell to the floor in a flurry of motion as the need between them boiled over into something that could no longer be sated with soft kisses and gentle caresses.

“So beautiful,” Kara whispered.

And Cat had a sarcastic retort about being in bed with a fucking goddess on the tip of her tongue, but when she looked up into Kara’s shimmering blue eyes, the words died on her lips. “Just gorgeous.” Her fingers skimmed over the soft skin she knew concealed more power than anyone had ever glimpsed, relishing in the reactions she could draw from Kara. Growing bolder, she brought her hand down to cup at Kara’s sex, whimpering at the wet heat that greeted her.

“Please, let me…” Kara’s voice trailed off as she maneuvered herself down the bed, settling in between Cat’s legs and looking up at her, her fingers skimming up Cat’s inner thighs as warm breath ghosted across heated flesh.

Cat could only manage a nod, her head falling back to the pillows as Kara’s tongue darted out, slowly trailing up the length of her, eventually settling into a steady rhythm that left Cat’s whole body buzzing with a pleasurable warmth that smoldered over into something so much more when Kara delved deeper, her tongue pushing inside of Cat before dragging back up and over her clit. She could hear the litany of moans and gasps falling from her lips, though she wasn’t quite cognizant of making them, and by the time Kara had Cat’s thighs hooked over her shoulders, Cat’s clit between her lips, Cat felt herself tipping over the edge, waves of pleasure washing over her as she sank, sated and boneless, back into the mattress.

Kara pressed a trail of wet kisses back up Cat’s torso before nuzzling into her neck and curling around her body.

“Really? We’re going to cuddle already?” Cat teased.

“You seem a little worn out.” Kara’s playful smile was one Cat thought could probably brighten her day for the rest of forever.

“Just because we aren’t all superheroes doesn’t mean we don’t have some amount of stamina.” In a moment she had rolled herself over on top of Kara, her legs straddling one of Kara’s thighs, leaving a slick trail of arousal along it. “Or is this not something you want?”

Kara shuddered as Cat’s fingers teased at her entrance. “Please.” The word turned into a groan as Cat easily slipped two fingers inside of her. Her hips bucked up of their own accord, chasing the more she so desperately needed.

“Patience.” Cat tsked as she held down Kara’s hips, smiling when Kara let her pretend like her feeble human strength, even with years of dedication to daily Pilates lessons, could do a thing to restrain her. “Promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

The answering whimper was more than reward enough, and Cat slowly began increasing her pace, watching with wonder as Kara’s abs tightened, her muscles clenching as she fought to keep still.

Kara let out a gasp of air when Cat crooked her fingers forward, and she switched over to a language Cat couldn’t understand when Cat ducked her head down, flicking her tongue across Kara’s clit.

“Please, please don’t stop,” Kara managed, switching back to English as her fingers curled into the covers and her walls clenched around Cat’s fingers.

Cat didn’t think she’d ever seen anything quite so radiant as Kara’s face when she came, her lips parting as her whole body arched off the bed before crashing back down with a relaxed smile and a breathy sigh.

“C’mere,” Kara mumbled, patting the spot next to her.

Cat crawled up, letting herself be gathered in Kara’s arms and tucked into her side.

“You know I want to date you too, right?” Kara’s voice was soft, her expression open and earnest. “I didn’t just come back for…for this.”

“Well I’m very happy to hear that.” Cat leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Kara’s lips, feeling warmth coursing through her at the feeling of Kara’s lips curling up into a smile. “Because I want to date you too.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr @sapphicscholarwrites and Twitter @sapphicscholar if you ever want to chat!


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